Hurricane Ernesto
cool indifference to the suffering of others
We are taking a hiatus from our typical newsletter because hurricane Ernesto destroyed our living shelter. With our life turned upside-down again, this iteration of the newsletter is a collage of our current state.
So. If you’ve found your way here only for the sustainable farming, or if you’re one of the many people who have met our lived experiences with blank stares and cool indifference, you’ll want to check back next month. This newsletter isn’t for you.
It was Alex’s birthday on Tuesday and they made a series of drawings as a birthday fundraiser for families supported by Creators for Gaza.
(1) please donate (sliding scale) $15-$150 to a campaign supported by Creators for Gaza. This link will take you to a list of families, and let you know what percentage of their campaign has been fulfilled. Click through to donate or share.
(2) send a screenshot of your donation and your mailing address to the farm email: buenocompartir at gmail dot com
(3) Alex will write a personal message on the back of the art and mail it to you.
To see all of the artwork available please see Alex’s instagram post.
Ahem [Steven takes the mic].
Ten years ago this summer, Alex flew into my life over scenic hilly farmland, during an art festival, zooming in on a Gator. Literally beaming so brightly that it made everyone else shine. We were both there volunteering but Alex was like A1 Volunteer putting-out-fires-with-a-smile. The type of kindness that lingers when they leave the room, that weekend was my first glimpse of their brilliance. But later I saw their art and it literally opened up a new way to see the world, showing me that anything, any situation, any landscape, is absolutely gorgeous when you look at it right. An abundance of love that ensured everyone and everything had the right to be beautiful and to be cared for and about. I hoped if I hung around them enough I might be able to see it for myself.
It’s funny how life works. That festival was the first time we hung out in a tent. And now half way through our third year living in a tent, it still feels as rich as the first weekend. But now we farm above scenic hills that shoulder the ocean, under incredibly difficult circumstances, and there’s no Gator yet, and I’m so thankful for this brilliant being that can make any day better, that I am honored to love.
Since Ernesto forced a hard restart on our entire life, it has been the hardest month in a long long time. And while we are in the middle of repairs, Alex has made sure we appreciate every day and everything we do have. So it’s no surprise that in the middle of all this, Alex is using this brief attention people get for their birthday to fundraise for the families trying to leave and survive in Gaza. You see why I am honored to love them?
Alex made every piece in the fundraiser since we lost everything. Some were water colored with the very rain water that soaks our belongings. Each piece is an invitation to join in transmuting the heaviest moments (like witnessing a live-streamed genocide) into a response carried by beauty. Because horrifically, things are only getting worse in Palestine and both democrats and republicans promise to drag their feet on ever making real change. And so all we have is right now and each other.
It’s Not Hurricane Ernesto’s Fault:
What happened to us
Hurricane Ernesto just barely became a hurricane as it passed us, gusts were unimpressive and the rain was barely more than a regular rainy day. But the bamboo and tarp shelter we patched together for 3 years was weakened by termites, rot, and repeated fractures. So since the morning that Ernesto visited us, when we woke up to the sound of wet wood cracking and snapping above us, it’s been a long month.
We have had to keep nearly everything we care about piled in the car. (I wrote about how we got here a while back). When the afternoon downpours come, sometimes we pile in the car too and drive somewhere less rainy until it’s done. Still, when I get back from filling up gas, Alex is in the passenger seat diligently at work: they’ve etched out just enough elbow space to be drawing the buildings I’d barely ever noticed, again transmuting beauty.
People struggle to understand how, under these conditions, Alex manages to shine, to constantly prioritize others, and spend no time complaining about our own struggles. It can be overwhelming how preciously they care for life, because humanity gives very us few examples. Since that first shiny encounter I’ve been watching them see the beauty where no one else cared to look and see the happiness, radiance, and brilliance that no one else was able to see.
The thing is—housed people hate houseless people. We see it on your faces. Everyone, from long time friends to new comrades, treats us differently after seeing how we have had to live for 3 years. Each time it has happened, it’s been its own collapse. When someone learns our living conditions, especially if they only experienced us when we’re wearing our big-city clothes to avoid mistreatment, the revelation is enough to topple all trust and credibility built up over years.
When our living space fell that rainy morning, years of construction, replacement, and repair collapsed in a single rain and we were catapulted from one houseless condition: mostly dry and able to care for belongings, to a houseless condition we’d thought was over: muddy and unable to wash anything. The two are treated very differently in society and have vastly different outcomes in the cultural-carceral-industrial nexus. And while we have relatively immense privilege to be able to get a better, stronger shelter put up in a few days, the literal collapse reflects the social collapse: the slippery slope between passable and too houseless, accepted and hated, harmless and worthy of punishment. A truly alarming number of houseless people in Puerto Rico die on jail cell floors, never convicted of a crime.
It feels impossible to put into words how devastating it is to be houseless. Trying to explain to people who’ve always been housed how exhausting it is to the body, mind, and spirit, through the performance of trauma show-n-tell, is itself exhausting. Even writing these words brings on a profound level of sadness because I know, as we have been shown time and time again, that almost nobody gives a shit.
People have seen how we live, they have experienced a small fraction of the hardship that is our daily life, and rather than expanded empathy, it caused rage and distance. They cannot relate beyond a media-influenced fetish or rejection of what life must be like, and our houselessness is taken as a personal insult, a rain on their parade. I can only imagine how they see the stranger sleeping outside the furniture store.
Throughout all the things we’ve had to do to rebuild I’ve been thinking about Grants Pass, “stay awake or be arrested”, and Law 67. (I’m working on a in-depth piece about the loophole Puerto Rico uses to dragnet and kill its houseless population on
). The mud makes me think about how slippery the slope is between passing in public and what happens to people when they look too houseless for the comfort of housed folk. The exhaustion makes me think of the displaced people of Gaza, Haiti, Sudan, everywhere. Alex is constantly wishing we had a way to share any lessons we’ve learned from 3 years in a tent to the all the displaced people in Gaza, but who needs our advice during a genocide?Hence the fundraiser, happy birthday mi amor, and long live the resistance.